


Seasons of Wine

by geekprincess26



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 05:17:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11456772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekprincess26/pseuds/geekprincess26
Summary: Sansa still drinks wine only when she has to.  Every so often, as the world changes at a dizzying pace around her and her cousin Jon, she has to.





	Seasons of Wine

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Jonsa 2017 Summer Challenge arranged by @jonsa-creatives on Tumblr.

Long ago, when Tyrion Lannister had asked Sansa if she drank wine, she had replied, “Only if I have to.”

 

“Well, today you have to,” he had told her, just teasingly enough to bring back the smile she had so desperately needed to wear in order to survive her wedding day.

 

She continued to drink wine over the years, but, true to her word, only when she felt it necessary. Years later, when she came to Winterfell to stay and discovered the sweetness of its honey mead, she drank wine even less.

 

But she drank it on the night during the depths of winter when Tyrion, no longer her husband either in truth or by law, returned to Winterfell with the newly crowned Daenerys Targaryen at his side. Daenerys, who had just ended the reign of Cersei Lannister in a hail of fire and blood, was unaccustomed to the hearty ales and meads of the North, and so Sansa ordered wine for the feast Winterfell held in the new queen’s honor.

 

She did indeed need the wine, she reflected hours into the feast. As Lady of Winterfell and heir to her brother Bran, Sansa had had to receive the royal retinue graciously; but she did not have to trust them, and she had incurred a searing headache by following the every move of the new queen and her courtiers. She only stopped when she heard a low, familiar voice at her elbow and turned to see Jon, once her brother and now her cousin; Jon, whom the Dragon Queen had just legitimized over his protests as Jon Targaryen; Jon, who had spent the evening looking as dour as he ever had when his name had been Snow; Jon, the only person in the hall who had spent half as much time as Sansa darting inscrutable looks at his newfound aunt. Sansa had not been entirely sure what to make of those looks, or indeed of Jon, who had been away for nearly a year; but when she felt his gentle touch on her shoulder and saw his outstretched hand offering her a full horn of honey mead, she rewarded him with a look of unabashed gratitude, for he had just saved her not only from worsening her headache, but from having to dance with one of Queen Daenerys’s most persistent attendants yet again.

 

“It’s better than the Night’s Watch ale,” Jon said, and his brown eyes twinkled. Sansa’s lips formed their first true smile in months.

 

Sansa drank wine again when the Dragon Queen and her army visited Winterfell again at the beginning of the Great Spring, their numbers reduced by over half at the hands of the now-destroyed Night’s King and his equally obliterated army. At first there were no great feasts, only hastily roasted game rushed up to the great hall from the kitchens and hastily cooked porridge rushed into Winterfell’s overflowing guest quarters where the wounded lay groaning on beds and pallets and even piles of straw on the floors. Jon had taken a severe shoulder wound, and Sansa had stitched it herself and fed him his porridge herself and spent all of her time treating other men in prayer to any god that would listen on Jon’s behalf, even though she still doubted whether she believed in any gods at all. Once enough of the queen’s small council could walk, Sansa ordered them as proper a dinner as could be arranged. She sat at the queen’s right hand and drank her wine and did all she could to hurry the conversation along so she could see to Jon again. She was just opening her mouth to say that perhaps they should adjourn to the council chamber when the door opened and Jon came hobbling in and Sansa flew out of her seat to engulf him in her arms. She wanted to shout any number of admonishments about his need for rest and making his wound worse, but all she could do was whisper _Jon_ into his shoulder and inhale the scent of pine trees and spring air from his neck and feel his good arm close about her as he whispered _Sansa_ into her ear.

 

Sansa drank wine for the first time after that during a hot, sunny afternoon in the Red Keep as summer swept over the new Westeros. Tyrion had cornered her that morning just before the luncheon hour and told her in a voice lighter than his look that she might need wine again at that afternoon’s council meeting. Sansa chose a seat between Jon and their trusted counselor Davos Seaworth, but her hand still trembled as she lifted the goblet of Dornish Red to her lips. She was not surprised when the Dragon Queen announced her desire to see the heirs to the Northern and Southern thrones of Westeros wed, preferably to each other, but her hand still shook. It shook as she set down the goblet, and it shook when she grabbed Jon’s arm as he shouted at his aunt that he would be dead before he let her force Sansa to marry again. He only stopped shouting when Sansa’s hand began trembling harder, and Sansa barely had time to take one more gulp from the goblet before Jon took her arm and led her, now trembling all over, out of the chamber.

 

“I’ll do it, Jon,” she whispered as they sat in a neglected corner of the castle gardens. “She’ll just marry me to someone else if you don’t. Probably a Southern lord who has no appreciation for snow or mead,” she added, forcing a strained smile onto her face. She half expected Jon to get angry again, but instead he nodded and gave her one of his inscrutable looks before reaching up to rub her shoulders gently with his hands.

 

“You – nothing will have to change,” he promised, and his face reddened. “I won’t be called king or prince, and I won’t touch you or – or come to your chambers, Sansa; not ever, if you don’t want me to.”

 

Sansa wanted to harangue him about how the marriage must be a real one, and how badly both North and South needed heirs with so few people left to any of the surviving Houses; but a lump of tears thickened in her throat, and one of them trickled unbidden down her left cheek. Jon’s thumb brushed it away so gently that Sansa barely felt his touch. She managed a nod before the second tear escaped, and the third and fourth and dozenth; and she offered no resistance as Jon took her into his arms and kissed her hair and whispered to her that she was safe. She clung to him and let the tears become sobs when she realized she might believe him.

 

Four years later, as summer faded into autumn, the Dragon Queen visited Winterfell again, and once again, Sansa drank wine at the welcoming feast. She heard the queen’s attendants whispering that the Lady of Winterfell must not be much accustomed to the wine, for her eyes shone and a flush covered her face after only one goblet, and she smiled like a fool over every word her husband the Lord Jon said. Sansa’s smile only grew, for she would never bother telling them that her eyes shone because she felt Jon interlace his fingers with hers underneath the table, and she blushed because she saw his adoring gaze from across the room when she was making her rounds to greet the queen’s courtiers, and she smiled when Jon spoke because his voice had called her out of her nightmares countless times until they began to lessen and fade.

 

Later that night, after they had kissed their sleeping children, they retired to their chambers. Jon’s eyes shone with delight and then want as Sansa loosened his laces and hers, and his lips and hands caressed her tenderly, and his voice moaned and whispered _Sansa_ and _perfect_ and _love, love, love_ into her ears and onto her body, and their groans mingled with their delight until they curled, spent and overjoyed, into each other’s arms. For a fleeting moment Sansa thought of Tyrion and the words he had spoken to her about wine so long ago, and she smiled again when she imagined his scandalized look when he realized just how little of it she had ever needed.


End file.
